Abstract:
Most aerobic methanotrophic bacteria grow only on C1 compounds. However, facultative methanotrophs are able to use either methane or some multi-carbon compounds as their sole carbon and energy source. The existence of such bacteria was a controversial topic until facultative methanotrophy was conclusively demonstrated in members of the genus Methylocella, which are widely distributed in acidic and neutral terrestrial environments. Methylocella species are morphologically and genetically unlike obligate methanotrophs in several ways. They lack a particulate, membrane-bound methane monooxygenase that is found in all other methanotrophs and instead use only a soluble form of this enzyme for methane oxidation. The latter is repressed if an alternative multicarbon growth substrate is present but is not affected by copper ion availability. The metabolic flexibility of facultative methanotrophs offers new biotechnological potential and calls for revising our outlook on methane cycling in the environment.
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Abbreviations
- GAF domains:
-
(found in cGMP-phosphodiesterases adenylyl cyclases and FhlA, where FhlA is formate hydrogen lyase transcriptional activator) are small-molecule-binding domains present in signal transduction proteins in organisms from all phyla
- PLFA:
-
phospholipid fatty acid
- pMMO:
-
particulate methane monooxygenase
- RT-PCR:
-
reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction
- SDS-PAGE:
-
sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis
- sMMO:
-
soluble methane monooxygenase
- TCA cycle:
-
tricarboxylic acid cycle
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Dedysh, S.N., Dunfield, P.F. (2010). Facultative Methane Oxidizers. In: Timmis, K.N. (eds) Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_144
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_144
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